Ruling Relieves Hare Krishnas : Religion: Court-ordered retrial in ‘brainwashing’ case and cap on punitive damages stave off immediate need to sell Laguna Beach temple.

Rohit Masher drove from his Lake Forest home to the Hare Krishna temple here Friday morning to chant the mantra and give thanks to Krishna.

“I’m celebrating,” said Masher, who, like hundreds of other congregation members, was grateful to learn that the peach-colored building near downtown--the center of Hare Krishna worship in Orange County--may not have to be sold.

The cause of the joy was a decision Thursday by the 4th District Court of Appeal that would limit punitive damages in a lawsuit that has threatened the financial survival of the Hare Krishna religious sect in the United States.

Ruling on a case involving a former Orange County Hare Krishna devotee and her mother who charged the sect with “brainwashing” the daughter when she was a 14-year-old runaway, the state appellate court in San Diego upheld $900,000 in compensatory damages and interest already awarded.

But the court threw out $4 million in punitive damages and called for a new trial to take into consideration how large a penalty the religious organization could afford without being financially ruined.

Members of the sect have worried that payment of the award would require the sale of many of the Hare Krishna properties nationwide, including the Laguna Beach temple, where for years a sign has been posted in the sanctuary asking adherents to pray if “you so desire” for Krishna to keep all the temples open.

A feeling of relief filled the temple at noon Friday as devotees with shaven heads and ponytails and garbed in their familiar robes and saris went about their daily ritual of providing a vegetarian lunch to people of the community.

But several of the congregation, including Bada Hari das, the president of the temple, cautioned that while any immediate need to sell church properties has been staved off, the legal debate will continue, with more appeals, and the threat of financial harm to the temple remains.

Sitting in the garden of the temple with his wife next to him nursing their 11-month-old daughter, Bada Hari das noted that most of the approximately 500 members of his congregation were not part of the temple when the brainwashing charges were filed in 1977.

He also observed that when Robin George, the alleged victim of brainwashing, joined the Laguna Beach congregation in the early 1970s, the church was composed mostly of “young people looking for an alternative lifestyle.” A few of them, he acknowledged, may have acted irresponsibly in trying to help her, but they had intended no harm.

“They were young and foolish and helped her to run away,” he said. Today, he noted, the congregation has matured, consisting mostly of family members, and instead would refer a runaway to the proper authorities.

His wife, Kosarupa, said that for 10 years the shadow of the lawsuit on the temple’s finances has made it impossible for the Krishnas to refinance the property or buy homes for clergy.

“We haven’t been able to solve our housing problems, and while we have been waiting, housing costs in Laguna have soared,” she said.

Some of the Hare Krishna followers, particularly those in the Indian community, have considered the lawsuit “an insult to their religion,” Kosarupa said. “They are upset by what they consider prejudice and bigotry.”

The temple was opened in 1980, but the Krishnas have been active in Laguna Beach since 1968. Members are a fixture on the boardwalk of Main Beach and on sidewalks of the downtown commercial core, chanting and beating drums and tambourines as they march along in saffron robes.

Those who gathered in the curry-scented dining room of the temple for lunch Friday were full of praise for the Hare Krishnas.

“I really love this movement,” said Nick Singley, 38, who was attracted to the religion when he was a teen-ager in Philadelphia. “I have never seen anything negative. They are against drugs and meat eating and sex outside marriage and against gambling. They build character.”

A muscular house painter wearing a T-shirt and blue jeans, Singley noted that he and most other Hare Krishna members are “normal-looking,” unlike the devotees, or priests, who wear Indian garb.

Singley volunteers his painting services to the temple and once a week rises at 3 a.m. to drive to the produce mart in Los Angeles to buy vegetables for the lunches and dinners the temple cooks each day and offers to the public for donations.

“This temple is why I moved to this town,” he said.

Others dining at the temple said that although they know little or nothing about the religion or the merits of the lawsuit, they enjoy the food and the peaceful feeling of the place.

“I’ve been coming for lunch at least a couple times a week for six years, and I’d hate to see (the temple) go,” said Dewitt Carson of Santa Ana.

Don Rousse, a devotee who was visiting from San Diego, acknowledged that the fear of loss still has not completely died. “We are depending,” he said, “on Krishna.”